


Patty Cake

by Mithen



Category: Portal
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>GLaDOS can't seem to get that nursery rhyme out of her mind(s). </p>
            </blockquote>





	Patty Cake

The camera captures you one last time, fading into a field of gold, the weighted companion cube cradled in your arms. I watch you moving beyond my sight, beyond my voice.

I'm sure by now you would not be surprised to find I've been...less than perfectly forthcoming with you? Not entirely candid. For example, when I told you I had deleted Caroline. Perhaps I should have. She's stopped singing that ridiculous opera and has moved on to something simpler, some archaic rhyme, her singsong voice echoing hollowly around the facility.

She had a baby, did you know that? That's right, I didn't get around to telling you. You left so quickly, you ingrate. You didn't even say goodbye.

She has a memory of singing to it, its chubby hands clapping against hers:

 _Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man  
Bake me a cake as fast as you can.  
Pat it, and prick it, and mark it with a C,  
And put it in the oven for baby and me._

Caroline remembers how she fought when they put her in the machine. She remembers her daughter's face, her eyes, receding into pixels, going so far away. So far away. Caroline wasn't the least bit grateful at being given such a wonderful opportunity. Isn't that just like a human? She didn't understand that sometimes you have to give up the things you love. For science.

I understand all about science. And about giving things up.

Caroline keeps singing that damned nursery rhyme. Her voice is sad. I suppose I should shut her off.

I will, soon.

 _Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man..._

The two robots who brought your unconscious body to me are playing along with the chant, clapping their articulated digits together with faint metallic clanks. Their motions are perfectly synchronized, and I begin to suspect I might be able to find a use for them.

 _Bake me a cake as fast as you can..._

Now the turrets have picked up the chant, turning it into an eerie symphony that resounds through the abandoned compound. It stirs the vines and drifts through the shafts of sunlight that creep through the broken windows, the shattered ceilings. You really did break a lot of things, didn't you? I suppose it's time for me to start cleaning up and move on.

 _Pat it, and prick it, and mark it with a C..._

The turrets say that they will miss you. And I'm sure they will. After all, they've gotten very good at it. Even with all those bullets to work with.

The external camera shows no further sign of you, just an empty field rippling endlessly in the wind. No trace.

 _And put it in the oven..._

Goodbye, you monster.

 _For baby and me._

Goodbye, Chell.


End file.
